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Archive for September, 2013
Antarctica is Melting from the Bottom Up
Posted by Nature World News: James A. Foley on September 16th, 2013
Nature World News: As much as 90 percent of the ice loss in some parts of Antarctica happens beneath the water, according to researchers who report that much more ice is melting from the undersides of submerged ice shelves than previously thought.
Every year 2,800 cubic kilometers leave the Antarctic ice sheet, but for decades the general consensus among scientists was that calving -- where huge chunks of ice break off from glaciers and float out to sea -- was the main source of Antarctic ice loss.
Using satellite...
Study Delivers Good, Bad News on Methane Leaks from Fracking Operations
Posted by InsideClimate: Lisa Song and Jim Morris on September 16th, 2013
InsideClimate: A long-awaited study led by the University of Texas at Austin shows that methane emissions from natural gas drilling sites are about 10 percent lower than recent estimates by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The research adds fresh fuel to the debate over whether natural gas is less carbon-intensive than coal. Although natural gas power plants emit smaller quantities of greenhouse gases than coal-fired plants, the production and distribution of natural gas release large amounts of methane,...
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Comments Off on Study Delivers Good, Bad News on Methane Leaks from Fracking OperationsAn Ecologist Explains His Contested View of Planetary Limits
Posted by New York Times: Andrew C. Revkin on September 16th, 2013
New York Times: It’s no surprise that Erle C. Ellis, an ecologist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, faced resistance when The Times published his Op-Ed article titled “Overpopulation is Not the Problem.” After all, his views clash with decades of assertions that we’re in “overshoot” as a species, sucking up far more resources than the planet can continue to offer. His answer to my enduring question here — “Which Comes First, Peak Everything or Peak us?” — is the latter. We are different than bacteria...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on An Ecologist Explains His Contested View of Planetary LimitsAmericans finding themselves powerless to stop pipeline companies from taking their land
Posted by InsideClimate: David Hasemyer on September 16th, 2013
InsideClimate: The distant rumbling starts about the time David Gallagher pours his first cup of coffee in the morning.
It's a signal that work crews from Enbridge Inc. [3] are beginning another day of construction on an underground pipeline that will someday carry 21 million gallons of heavy crude oil a day just 14 feet from his Ceresco, Mich. home.
By the time Gallagher settles into his favorite chair and sets his cup on the living room table, the parade of bulldozers, backhoes and trucks is grinding past...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Americans finding themselves powerless to stop pipeline companies from taking their landWill Fracking Go Bust in Pennsylvania?
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on September 16th, 2013
EcoWatch: In 2012, journalists began warning of an impending bust in Pennsylvania’s fracking boom. Since 2010, experts found, drilling in the Marcellus Shale formation--one of the largest in North America--has seen a 50 percent decline in natural gas production, according to the Philadelphia Daily News. The number of drilling rigs skyrocketed from 20 in 2009 to 120 in 2011, making the state the de facto ground zero for the fracking revolution. Now that number has dropped to 90--though the total number of wells...
Tar-sands oil could be coming soon to New England
Posted by Grist: Roger Drouin on September 16th, 2013
Grist: A citizens group in South Portland, Maine, is hoping to beat back an effort by Big Oil to pipe tar-sands crude through their city. The group gathered enough signatures to put an initiative on the November ballot that would stymie oil companies` plans, and now the activists are going door-to-door to convince their neighbors to vote for it.
South Portland is a relatively quiet place where major news doesn’t happen often, and lobstermen and clammers still make a living on the water.
When Vanessa...
Study shows projected climate change in West Africa not likely to worsen malaria situation
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 16th, 2013
PhysOrg: As public-health officials continue to fight malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, researchers are trying to predict how climate change will impact the disease, which infected an estimated 219 million people in 2010 and is the fifth leading cause of death worldwide among children under age 5. But projections of future malaria infection have been hampered by wide variation in rainfall predictions for the region and lack of a malaria-transmission model that adequately describes the effects of local rainfall...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Study shows projected climate change in West Africa not likely to worsen malaria situationReport: Climate change to shift Kenya’s breadbaskets
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 16th, 2013
Science Codex: Kenyan farmers and agriculture officials need to prepare for a possible geographic shift in maize production as climate change threatens to make some areas of the country much less productive for cultivation while simultaneously making others more maize-friendly, according to a new report prepared by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA).
The report, released today by the CGIAR...
Europe’s largest tidal power array surges forward
Posted by BusinessGreen: None Given on September 15th, 2013
BusinessGreen: The UK's fledgling tidal power sector is set to take a major step forward today, as the Scottish government awards planning consent to the Europe's largest tidal array, located in the Pentland Firth.
Meygen, a group led by Morgan Stanley, International Power and tidal technology provider Atlantis, is planning to deploy up to 400 tidal turbines in the Inner Sound, which is known as the "crown jewel' of the Pentland Firth for its fast flowing waters.
Today, Scottish Energy Minister Fergus Ewing...
Boulder County activists concerned about flooded oil, gas wells
Posted by Denver Post: Erica Meltzer on September 15th, 2013
Denver Post: Inundated along with roads, bridges, houses and farms are thousands of oil and gas wells and associated condensate tanks and ponds in northeast Boulder County and southwest Weld County.
Anti-fracking activists say the industry needs to account for what types of chemicals may be contaminating soil and groundwater in the area around these wells.
The concentration of oil and gas wells in flood-prone areas speaks to one more risk of what they see as a dangerous industry.
Regulators say they...
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